


nor bid the stars farewell

by heartofstanding



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Legolas isn't that sympathetic, Minor canon divergence, elves being ignorant jerks, mentions of cannibalism, written before the third movie came out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-14
Updated: 2014-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 04:41:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17780753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartofstanding/pseuds/heartofstanding
Summary: Tauriel survives the Battle of Five Armies, Kili doesn't.





	nor bid the stars farewell

**Author's Note:**

> This was written and finished in 2014, before the third final Hobbit film came out. It was based on my own speculation about how Kili's death would be handled and I got quite a lot wrong. But I still like it.

The news comes as Tauriel stands in attendance on the king. He is far, far away, eyes that glitter and see beyond the confines of the green-walls of the tent. The chief healer should be here, Tauriel thinks, to tend the cut across the king's cheek, to bind his bleeding arm. But Thranduil has decreed that the healers, even his own, should first attend to those wounded more seriously. Tauriel's own belly aches with the force of a blow that did not break skin or bone. She longs to reach out to Thranduil, to beg his pardon and tend to him.

But Legolas returns with Hadril before she can speak.

Hadril is pale-faced but whole, clutching a scroll in her white hand. 'Lists of the dead from our allies,' she says, by way of explanation, and holds it out to Thranduil, who does not take it.

'Bard lives,' Legolas says, voice grim and hard. Everything about him, Tauriel has realised, is grim and hard, and she does not know why she never saw it before, why his love for her and loyalty to her hid such things from her keen eyes.

'And.' Thranduil's voice is as hard and as fragile as ice. Tauriel holds her breath, turning her head back to Hadril.

'Thorin Oakenshield,' says Hadril, 'is dead. His wounds were too grievous, his spirit too hurt. His sister's sons, Fíli and Kíli, gave their lives in defence of his.'

_No._

Tauriel's hands are shaking. She folds them behind her back. _No._ There must be a mistake. She wasn't there, she didn't see it. It's wrong, wrong, _wrong_. She wants to tell Hadril to check again, demand new information because what she holds in her hands is obviously wrong. After all the times she saved Kíli, this cannot be true. He cannot be dead, his body torn asunder by the foul ravages of war. He must be alive, somehow. Even if he is injured, he must live. Wounds can be tended, hurts soothed. He is living. He cannot be—

There is no possible way he—

The world is falling away from her. _No._

She must have spoken out loud.

'It is true,' Legolas says, eyes meeting hers for a moment, then turning away abruptly. 'Dáin Ironfoot will rule in Oakenshield's place.'

All the times she saved him and she couldn't save him this time. She wasn't even there to bear witness to her failure. He, _Kíli_ , is gone, unreachable until the breaking of the world. If she follows him, she will never reach him, and she is no Lúthien for the beauty and devastation of her grief to change the heart of Mandos. She can't breathe. It _hurts_ all along the length of her veins and bones. The world is flying apart around her and all she can think, all she can do is stand here in silence, utterly useless.

She will never, _never_ , see him again.

Never hear his voice, his laugh. Never see the light in his eyes – not Elvish light, but bright and happy all the same. Never feel the rough calluses of his fingers in the brush of their hands. See the way he lights up when his brother is near. She can see it all clearly, the incalculable losses that come from one death and he, Kíli, is gone and she will never, never, never be near him again.

Thranduil turns to her in one graceful movement, like smoke in the breeze, and she sees the crystalline hurt in his eyes, like bright, scarred gems, and then he is turning away, facing the battlefield again.

Kíli is gone. Everything gives way.

+

They do not let her see him.

It should be no surprise, the dwarves are a secretive race and these are the bodies of their princes. Yet when she is cast out, when they refuse to let her even see Dáin Ironfoot or Óin or Bofur to plead her case, when they do not even let her _speak_ , it hurts beyond measure and the shock of her failures thud dully through her, make her angry, hands clenching into fists that will do nothing but make things worse.

There is no great funeral for Thorin's sisters-sons, buried deep within the stone vaults of Erebor. There is talk amongst her folk of how the dwarves treat their dead. She finds Tuinir and Legolas talking about it by the fires. Tuinir say that the dwarves carves the flesh from their dead and eat it, laying only the bones amongst the stone. Legolas says that the dwarves embalm their dead, preserve them, and then take them out on the days they deem holy.

The crassness of their speak turns her stomach and she turns away before she gives herself away in her anger. If this is true – and she does not believe it – she cannot bear to think of Kíli being handled in such a way, his sweetness cut away and devoured, or else ruined in the attempt to preserve.

+

'I know you cared for the dwarf,' Legolas says, when he corners her by the river. Her hands fumble amongst the river-stones, trying to remember the shape of Kíli's rune-stone, the smoothness and the sharp artistry of the runes carved upon it.

'What of it?' Her hair dangles over one shoulder, the ends dropping in the cold water, and she throws it behind her, impatient. She does not want to talk, not to Legolas or Tuinir or Hadril or anyone.

'You are allowed to grieve for him,' Legolas says, 'If you need to talk, I am here for you, as I have always been.' He hesitates when she does not speak, then adds, 'I know you cared for him.;

'And I know you did not,' she says, her voice sharp, 'You hated him.'

'I did not! I barely knew him.'

Tauriel looks up at the sky, hoping to find the Valacirca, to find hope in the work of Elbereth. But the sky is black and empty, holding only the memory of stars. Even the moon is veiled, suffocated beneath thick, black clouds. Slowly, she stands, letting the rocks she holds clatter back to their fellows.

'Don't lie,' she says, her voice swift, laced with poison, 'Aye, you hated him. Because I could have loved him in place of you, because I _did_ , and because he was nothing to you, barely more than an orc. You would have let him die a thousand times and never given it a thought. So do not lie to me.'

She turns to go, but he reaches out, taking hold of her arm.

'Perhaps you are right. I did not care for him. But I care for _you_ , and you are hurting, and I would do all in my power to stop it.'

She shakes her head, pulling away with him in a slow movement. He lets her go, and for a moment, he seems saddened. But she cannot feel pity for him.

'There is no healing you can offer me,' she says, the words hard in her throat, like gravel, 'He is gone, and my grief is not a wound to be tended to and bound, left to scab over and the skin regrow. I do not require anyone to save me from my sorrow, least of all you.'

'Tauriel,' he says, and his voice is hoarse, almost desperate, but she turns away from him.

'If you would call me your friend, then let me tend my wounds in the way I choose.' She keeps her head high as she seeks the shadows, the river that flows to a sea, but not the right one.

+

On the day of Thorin Oakenshield's funeral, Tauriel is part of Thranduil's escort inside the mountain. Thranduil is a faint glimmer of starlight amongst the golden halls, like the moon during the day, overshadowed by the light of the golden sun. Legolas stands at his father's shoulder, but he does not meet her eyes.

Inside the chambers, under the watchful, suspicious eyes of the dwarves, Bard lays the Arkenstone on Thorin's breast and Thranduil rests the sword of Ecthelion, Orcrist, upon the tomb, his face still as graven stone. For a moment, he seems old and tired, weighed down by insurmountable and incalculable sorrows. But then he straightens and turns back, and his face is carefully blank again. Her fists clench and then, slowly, deliberately, unclench.

On the way out of the labyrinth of tombs, he calls her to his side.

'They buried his sister-sons together,' he says, voice so quiet than none but an elf could hear, 'For in life they would not be parted.'

She looks at him, but he has turned his face away, and she falls back to march beside Hadril.

+

There is much in this new world to rejoice in.

Tauriel knows this.

The dragon is dead, his body unreachable and hidden in the deep depths of the Long Lake. The Free Folk of this region can put aside their fears of smoke in the air, unseen fires and great destruction and death. They can turn their thoughts to restoration and healing, of tending to the great desolation and making things grow there again until the hurts of the land are but a distant memory.

Dale is restored, Laketown is prosperous again, Erebor is home to the dwarves again. Gold and silver and many precious things flow down the river to the lake and beyond. Things like hunger and want will now become memory and history. One day, it will be but a bad dream, the whisper of a time of poverty to make them grateful for the life they have now.

And Bard has become a hero, a king. He will sung about and made into a legend, until the ages pass and the world is changed forever. His reign, and the reigns of his descendents, will bring with them great joy and times of plenty. There will be no lack.

The darkness has been cleansed from the forest, the paths remade, and the forest is healing, the grievous wounds scabbing over, new life growing in them. There is talk of discussion with their once unreachable kin in Lórien and Rivendell, and there is new wealth and delight in the woods.

Yet still it seems to her that sorrow clings to these lands. The victories and the joys have been bought with a bitter cost and a deep frost lies upon them still.

Tauriel knows she should not be selfish. She should not wish that things were so different. If Kíli dying was the cost of these cures, of this peace and prosperity, then it has been paid and no wishing will change that. Would she bring these lands to ruin or poverty, to save the life of one?

She could not be so selfish.

+

She dreams that she stole him away, kept him safe and whole, but he grew to hate her for it. That he escaped and death found him before she could. Worse, she dreams that he stayed with her, but even she could not hide him from time nor keep the long years from taking him, for he was of a race that was born to die.

+

And the days pass. His name is not spoken and her heart does not heal.

+

There are so few things she has to remember him by.

He gave her no token nor trinket, and she gave to him nothing in return. What they had, they shared in words, in brief touches and discreet smiles in a time that knew so little joy. The dwarves took his runestone and returned to his mother, or else buried it with him.

Laketown was destroyed in the dragon's blaze, the house where she had saved him for the last time is ruined, lost amongst the wreckage of that wooden town. The places where they last spoke, on the edges of the river or the desolation become lost amongst the new growth and the new towns.

In all her patrols of the forest, she cannot find the place she saw him first, where she saved him first, where he lay pinned beneath a giant spider. Perhaps she took no notice of their surroundings, only the threat and the fire in her blood at the thought of battle. Perhaps she walks past that place a thousand times without knowing it.

The only place she has left is the cell. Sometimes, when the dungeons are empty, or near enough, she goes down and sits in quiet. Her memory of his words is strong, but sometimes, _sometimes_ , she wonders if she has invented half of them. She wonders if she invented him.

+

She dreams that starlight shone in his eyes, but it was distant, dying, and all she did was try to delay the impossible. He was marked for a death, a fire spark that leapt from the blaze and burnt out too quickly.

+

The lore tells her this:

Dwarves were made by Aulë. At the moment of their creation, Ilúvatar said they should not live and so Aulë went to do the bidding of his master. But Ilúvatar had pity and allowed the dwarves to live, giving them a place in the world he made.

They were not meant to live, but for the One's pity and mercy, they did.

When they die, their spirits are kept in the Halls of Mandos, kept apart from those who pass through those halls. The Elves say they have no place in the world unmarred, that there is no role they will play in the breaking of Arda and the great battle, but the dwarves say differently. The dwarves say they will work with Aulë and aid in the rebuilding of the world after that great battle.

The lore does not tell her if there is a path between the halls set aside for the dwarves and those set aside for the elves. The lore does not tell her that if she died, if she begged Mandos with all her grief and love as a paltry offering, there could be a way for her to see him again.

Is that it, then, she wonders. For all she would spend her grief and sorrow, dream up some way to make him live for her again, the lore only tells her that there is a chance, just a chance, that when the end of days comes, she will see him again.

+

His name is not spoken, his body rots amongst the stone of his ancestors. They do not remember him. His king is remembered and spoken of with respect he did not deserve in the end, or so Legolas says, and his brother is remembered, though rarely, spoken of the king whose blessed days never came. But Kíli, her sweet Kíli, he is forgotten, left to moulder amongst the stone, the prince that never was.

+

She dreams she forgets his name, that his face becomes a mystery to her.

She dreams that she loved a dwarf and he died and she cannot remember anything about him.

When those dreams come, she walks amongst the tree-tops, eyes seeking a fire-moon amongst the stars, or else she finds her way down into the dungeons.

+

The days pass. Legolas goes to Rivendell and returns, singing of Gondor and the returned king, and of Ithilien where he will dwell. He sings of the cry of gulls and the Sea, and tells her of his plans, but she does not hear him, not truly.

Dáin Ironfoot dies and his son becomes king in Erebor, and Kíli's body still moulders in the tombs when he should be standing beside the throne, his brother ruling from it.

Sometimes she thinks she made them up, two young princes with all the joy and promise burning through them, led to the slaughter by the one who should loved them and protected them above all. But sometimes she hears Fíli's name whispered in respectful, solemn tones, and perhaps she only dreamed Kíli into being.

+

In the evening, when the elven-harpers still sing of Elbereth and starlight upon a clear sky, she leaves the feast and goes down to the cells. They are empty, a rare thing, and she sits on the stairs next to the cell that once held Kíli. She remembers his words, everyone of them, even the ones she thinks she made up and the cell remains empty and her heart cold.

Yet.

She hears the faint slither of silken robes on the stone floors and Thranduil is there before her, calm, and he bows his head to her. Flustered, she tries to rise, to meet him with a bow the way she should, but he waves her effort aside with one graceful hand, and sits beside her.

'He was kind,' he says, slowly, 'And he was brave and, like all of his kin, he was intensely loyal.'

Tauriel's back stiffens and she dares to look over at him, her king, with his face as still as alabaster.

'Kíli's death was a great loss,' he says, and averts his eyes, 'He deserved better, but the forces in the world do not always care about what is right and just. If you loved him, then there is no shame in that.'

'I should have saved him. I saved him so many times, but that time, all my efforts were not enough. I was not even there.'

Thranduil is silent for a long time, then he turns to her, eyes bright and scarred with a grief she does not know or comprehend. 'That is not to say you are at fault. In dark times, there is always much that should have been different, Tauriel.'

'I know,' she whispers, and she knows she is selfish, to want this one thing when so much should have been different.

Thranduil sighs, placing a gentle hand on her back. 'Our memories are long and in them is written many things, both joyful and sorrowful.' He pauses for a moment, then says, 'Remember both, Tauriel, and do not be sorry you loved.'

For a time, they sit in silence, then he speaks again, 'I do not understand why you are still here. The world is open to us once again, and you have always longed to go beyond our borders. Perhaps it is time for you to leave us at last.'

+

And it is time, she knows.

She stands in the middle of her chambers, at the pack at her feet, and looks around her. This will always be her home, Thranduil's doors will be open to her as long as they endure here, but it is time to follow the path that is laid at her feet. She does know where it ends – Ithilien and its forests, back to these woodland halls or across the Sea with its bent road, but her feet point south, to Dunland and its fire-moons.


End file.
